Symptom correlates of prepulse inhibition deficits in male schizophrenic patients.

OBJECTIVE Information processing, inhibitory, and gating deficits in human and animal model studies of schizophrenia are demonstrated by using prepulse inhibition of the startle reflex. Prepulse inhibition deficits in schizophrenic patients correlate with core cognitive symptoms, such as thought disorder and distractibility, but their relationship to positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia is less clear. METHOD Fifty-one male schizophrenic patients and 26 male normal comparison subjects were tested for prepulse inhibition of the eyeblink component of the startle reflex measured by electromyogram recording. Startling stimuli (118 dB) were presented alone (pulse only) or were preceded 60 msec by discrete prepulse stimuli of 2, 4, 8, or 16 dB above the background 70-dB noise level. In addition, patients were assessed for demographic variables, generalized symptoms (Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale), and positive and negative symptoms. RESULTS Schizophrenic and comparison groups differed significantly in the amount of prepulse inhibition produced by the 16-dB prepulse, with schizophrenic patients showing the expected deficient prepulse inhibition. Latency of the eyeblink response was generally slower for the schizophrenic patients, but the prepulse-induced latency facilitation for schizophrenic patients and comparison subjects did not differ significantly. The pattern of prepulse inhibition deficits in schizophrenic patients remained, with age and education controlled, in an analysis of covariance and subgroup matching. Deficient prepulse inhibition correlated with both positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia. CONCLUSIONS Under these experimental conditions, schizophrenia-linked deficits in prepulse inhibition detected with a relatively strong prepulse are correlated with both positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia. The level of correlation, while significant in this cohort, is not as robust as that in previous reports linking prepulse inhibition deficits with other measures, such as thought disorder. Future work should probably focus on the relationship of prepulse inhibition deficits to measures such as thought disorder rather than positive and negative symptoms.

[1]  Brett A. Clementz,et al.  P50 Suppression among schizophrenia and normal comparison subjects: A methodological analysis , 1997, Biological Psychiatry.

[2]  N. Swerdlow,et al.  Changes in sensorimotor inhibition across the menstrual cycle: Implications for neuropsychiatric disorders , 1997, Biological Psychiatry.

[3]  S. Faraone,et al.  Pregnancy, delivery and infancy complications and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: Issues of gene-environment interaction , 1997, Biological Psychiatry.

[4]  Michael F. Green,et al.  What are the functional consequences of neurocognitive deficits in schizophrenia? , 1996, The American journal of psychiatry.

[5]  Robert Freedman,et al.  Gating of auditory P50 in schizophrenics: Unique effects of clozapine , 1996, Biological Psychiatry.

[6]  Mark Hallett,et al.  Sensorimotor gating in boys with Tourette's syndrome and ADHD: Preliminary results , 1996, Biological Psychiatry.

[7]  C. A. Morgan,et al.  Preliminary evidence of an association between sensorimotor gating and distractibility in psychosis. , 1996, The Journal of neuropsychiatry and clinical neurosciences.

[8]  R. Oades,et al.  Event-related potentials during an auditory discrimination with prepulse inhibition in patients with schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder and healthy subjects. , 1996, The International journal of neuroscience.

[9]  N. Swerdlow,et al.  “Normal” personality correlates of sensorimotor, cognitive, and visuospatial gating , 1995, Biological Psychiatry.

[10]  Jane S. Paulsen,et al.  Impaired prepulse inhibition of acoustic and tactile startle response in patients with Huntington's disease. , 1995, Journal of neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry.

[11]  M. Koch,et al.  Deficient Sensorimotor Gating After 6‐Hydroxydopamine Lesion of the Rat medial Prefrontal Cortex is Reversed by Haloperidol , 1994, The European journal of neuroscience.

[12]  E. Daneluzzo,et al.  Sensorimotor gating and habituation evoked by electro-cutaneous stimulation in schizophrenia , 1994, Biological Psychiatry.

[13]  N. Swerdlow,et al.  Clozapine antagonizes phencyclidine-induced deficits in sensorimotor gating of the startle response. , 1994, The Journal of pharmacology and experimental therapeutics.

[14]  David L. Braff,et al.  Information-processing deficits and thought disorder in schizophrenia. , 1994 .

[15]  N. Swerdlow,et al.  Assessing the validity of an animal model of deficient sensorimotor gating in schizophrenic patients. , 1994, Archives of general psychiatry.

[16]  M. Geyer,et al.  Impaired startle prepulse inhibition and habituation in patients with schizotypal personality disorder. , 1993, The American journal of psychiatry.

[17]  D. Braff,et al.  The abnormality of normal comparison groups: the identification of psychosis proneness and substance abuse in putatively normal research subjects. , 1993, The American journal of psychiatry.

[18]  N. Swerdlow,et al.  Men are more inhibited than women by weak prepulses , 1993, Biological Psychiatry.

[19]  N. Swerdlow,et al.  A preliminary assessment of sensorimotor gating in patients with obsessive compulsive disorder , 1993, Biological Psychiatry.

[20]  D. Braff,et al.  Sensory gating and inhibitory function in late-life schizophrenia. , 1993, Schizophrenia bulletin.

[21]  D. Braff.  Information processing and attention dysfunctions in schizophrenia. , 1993, Schizophrenia bulletin.

[22]  C. Grillon,et al.  Startle gating deficits occur across prepulse intensities in schizophrenic patients , 1992, Biological Psychiatry.

[23]  Christian Grillon,et al.  Gating and habituation of the startle reflex in schizophrenic patients. , 1992 .

[24]  N. Swerdlow,et al.  The neural substrates of sensorimotor gating of the startle reflex: a review of recent findings and their implications , 1992, Journal of psychopharmacology.

[25]  R. Simons,et al.  Reflex modification in psychosis-prone young adults. , 1992, Psychophysiology.

[26]  D L Braff,et al.  Sensorimotor gating and schizophrenia. Human and animal model studies. , 1990, Archives of general psychiatry.

[27]  D. Weinberger.  Implications of normal brain development for the pathogenesis of schizophrenia. , 1987, Archives of general psychiatry.

[28]  P. Holzman.  Recent studies of psychophysiology in schizophrenia. , 1987, Schizophrenia bulletin.

[29]  R Freedman,et al.  Neurobiological studies of sensory gating in schizophrenia. , 1987, Schizophrenia bulletin.

[30]  K H Nuechterlein,et al.  Psychophysiological dysfunctions in the developmental course of schizophrenic disorders. , 1984, Schizophrenia bulletin.

[31]  K. Nuechterlein,et al.  Information processing and attentional functioning in the developmental course of schizophrenic disorders. , 1984, Schizophrenia bulletin.

[32]  M. Davis,et al.  A primary acoustic startle circuit: lesion and stimulation studies , 1982, The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience.

[33]  M. Geyer,et al.  Habituation of the Blink reflex in normals and schizophrenic patients. , 1982, Psychophysiology.

[34]  C. Carter,et al.  Effect of lesion of cortical dopamine terminals on subcortical dopamine receptors in rats , 1980, Nature.

[35]  M. Geyer,et al.  Prestimulus effects on human startle reflex in normals and schizophrenics. , 1978, Psychophysiology.

[36]  F. Graham,et al.  Presidential Address, 1974. The more or less startling effects of weak prestimulation. , 1975, Psychophysiology.

[37]  W. Dixon.  BMD : biomedical computer programs , 1967 .

[38]  J. Overall,et al.  The Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale , 1962 .